The Kuwaidelphia 76ers

We just returned from downtown Kuwait City: two hours of dusty streets, congested alleys, Super Dirt Week traffic and an occasional ecstasy of air conditioning.

I saw:

1. An “EVERYTHING FOR 100 FILS” store. You could transplant it onto any street in Syracuse. Nobody would suspect.

2. Two McDonalds and a KFC. (See No. 1.)

3. A shop selling rugs that commemorate the war in Afghanistan. For the man who has everything!

4. Two dudes on rider mowers, cutting a single plot of grass barely larger than my Thanksgiving Day butt. A third guy manicured the edges with a power mower. A blessing, perhaps, that they don’t grow a lot of grass?

5. A shop that sells, among other things, Philadelphia 76er ballcaps. Of course! Why didn’t I expect it? Kuwait… the 76ers… of course!

6. Kuwait’s largest mosque, across from the Kuwait Stock Exchange.

7. The nation’s Liberation Tower. Sort of a Seattle Space Needle for government. Limited tourism potential. We found no public entrance.

This tour followed a night of exhaling, after Gloria Wright’s mysterious lost luggage finally turned up at Kuwait International Airport. The harrowing account of her heroic suitcase rescue follows this post. It deserves to be made into a movie, starring Angelina Jolie.

Last night, we dined at the Hilton’s “Blue Elephant” restaurant. I ordered a Thai seafood dish called “Fruits Der Mer Phuket,” just so I could say it. For the finale: black pepper ice cream. Yolanda Wright (no relation to Gloria) would have raved.

We will try to sleep this afternoon, before the all-night trip into Iraq.

At a certain time, we will meet a certain guy at a certain place for certain instructions…